Mages, ten-man raiding, and other things that are awesome.

One of the toughest things for me (that I always struggle with) is not specific to WoW, although it applies to it here. It’s something that’s always proven difficult, so I shouldn’t be surprised that it rears its head again now. My problem is this – I overestimate the time I have. I underestimate how long it’ll take me to get things done. I overextend myself and commit to too many things.

I’m sure this isn’t a unique problem. It’s not even that I am that busy a person or anything, but my tendency to say “yes” to everything leads to me making myself frantic. In a Warcraft context, this is an issue exacerbated by the easy access to friends on other servers and in other raid groups. It leads me to say things like, “Hey, I can gear up my goblin alt so I can do Horde stuff with xyz!” and then “Hey, they are running a T11 heroic group on these days, I could go and help them…”

It seems to stem from both a desire to help (everyone) and a wish to experience things. Immediately after BT scaled back our raiding, I couldn’t believe the free time I had. Voss and I spent several leisurely evenings in succession – walking the dog, cooking new meals, hanging out on the couch reading, talking, and watching a movie. It felt decadent to have so much time to deal with day-to-day things like laundry, housework, and recreation not spent in front of a computer. Formerly, with 2-3 raid nights a week (usually three) Voss would get home at 4:30, I’d probably start cooking supper at 4:00 to have it ready by 5:00, sometimes 5:30 if I miscalculated, we’d eat and squeeze in a 20 minute dog walk in time to login for the raid at 6:30. Raids don’t actually start until 7:00, but there are things that need doing beforehand to get ready. Check the forums – has anyone cancelled at the last minute? If so, is there a standby? Are we all clear on what we’ll be attempting? Have we prepared the strats? The raid itself goes until 10:00, at which time we log off, get ready for bed and try to be there by 10:30. All too often we wouldn’t, because we wanted to talk and spend some time together, so we’d go to sleep too late, get too little sleep, be tired, and then come home and do it all over again.

This schedule left little time for just relaxing. It made us take something that was supposed to be fun and turned it into a chore. Sure, I enjoyed the actual raiding, but too much was being sacrificed to make it happen. We didn’t have a non-gaming spouse who would prepare supper or take care of outside of game things for us. It was just us. I had a conversation once with the late, much missed Roksi of Production Company. She described the pre-raid chaos she and her husband went through with racing home, getting everything ready and logging in with food still in their mouths (or at their desks!) She wondered if Voss and I experienced the same thing, and I commiserated. We knew where the other was coming from, but of course it’s a choice you make – up until it doesn’t feel like a choice any more. The time commitment that amount of raiding demanded was like a slow squeeze. I didn’t realize how I’d shaped my life around it until I’d been doing it quite literally for years. We always said “Real life is more important than WoW,” but they were just empty words. My family knew I wouldn’t see them on a Monday, Wednesday or Thursday most likely because if we both took the night off the roster would be wrecked. Our bench was theoretically deep enough to handle it but that didn’t always work out. We felt like frogs in a pot with the water was being incrementally and gradually heated – we’d reached a boiling point and never even knew it. If we did happen to do something on a Mon, Wed or Fri I couldn’t stop Voss from checking the forums (and the Mumble status) to make sure “everything was okay.”

We had started to resent the pull the game had on us. It had nothing to do with the guild, who are fabulous people we enjoy spending time with, and everything to do with the unconscious choices we’d make each week. Every time we put off plans because they fell on a raid day, we weren’t putting life first. Every hour I’d spend scouring the forums looking for recruits to shore up a dwindling roster was time I wasn’t spending on something else. Now that I have a bit of distance and it’s been a few months, I recognize how deeply unhappy I was with the situation, and how much better things are for me now. I’m slowly asserting order in our life and environment. I don’t have any more laundry that’s been allowed to pile up. I’ve cooked some (if I may say so myself) amazing meals since January. I love cooking and didn’t realize how little I had done of it because it was usually easier to just order in or eat something fast. We’ve both lost some weight and are much happier and more relaxed. I think it makes us more fun to be around anyway at the raids where we ARE doing stuff.

How does this tie into saying no? Well, first and foremost, we had to reduce our raiding, which wasn’t easy but was absolutely the right thing to do. The problem for me came when it had been a few weeks past that major change. The same free time I’d luxuriated in started to look so open. So full of…possibilities! Awesome guildies like Fsob organized old-content MMLA runs (Mogging Mounts Legendary Achievement). I always love to see old content! Folks spent some evenings in BGs. Hey, I like to BG with my guildies! I decided to start running a Firelands group on Saturdays. (By the way, we’re still looking for a few DPS for this week’s run, we’re trying it on 25! Check out the thread and sign up if you are interested, especially if you’re a hunter because we need your survivalfulness). After a little while, it was possible for Friday to be an MMLA run, Saturday to be a Firelands run, and then Monday to be the guild raid. It was too much. Actually, it was exactly the same number of nights that had made us feel too committed to raiding in the first place! I had to regretfully stop attending each and every MMLA run, because I realized that for me, FL and MMLA were often mutually exclusive. I felt guilty about it, because I like running old content and I like Fsob and I didn’t want his raid to lack for people. But I just can’t have that much scheduled WoW time any more. It’ll be nice when we are done in Firelands so that it’s a non-issue.

As far as other commitments go, it’s so tempting when you see other people who need someone for whatever it might be – a single raid, a series of raids – at least for me, it’s easy to get caught up in the moment. Raiding is fun. It’s nice to be able to help your friends! But it’s also important for me to look at the bigger picture from the opposite perspective – if I spend x amount of time doing THIS, what will I not have time to do? It’s never an easy question, and can make you feel like a colossal jerk when you know that you could help but seem as if you’re choosing not to. I am fortunate to have some amazing folks willing to help me each week in Firelands, and I’m aware that I’m accruing some sizable debts because of it, which I hope I can someday repay. For now, though, I’m just trying to remember that the time I SEEM to have doesn’t actually exist, being already filled with a number of obligations already. I have to remind myself I can’t join every raid or every five-man that contains people I genuinely like and want to help. I have to pick and choose and sometimes be a bit precious about what I’m willing to spend time doing. I owe it first to myself and Voss to not get grouchy because I didn’t set limits on the amount of energy I had to commit to this. It’s a delicate balance, but I keep reminding myself of a therapist’s advice: You have to take care of yourself before you take care of others. You know, the whole airplane oxygen mask thing. You’re no use to anybody if you’re just gasping there.

I want to hear about how YOU all maintain this balance! Are you juggling everything with perfect poise? Do you feel a bit rushed sometimes, or guilty when you can’t help out your friends? Do you somehow manage to ‘do it all’? Are you tired of hearing me write about how happy I am to be raiding on a reduced schedule? I made the joke about a month later that I didn’t have anything to write on my blog because every post would have just been “I LOVE RAIDING ONE DAY A WEEK, PART I,” “RAIDING ONE DAY A WEEK IS AWESOME, PII…” We killed H Ultrax the other day, too, which puts us at 2/8 heroic at an execeedingly leisurely pace, but then we killed Ultra the first night we even tried it. It’s nice to kill heroic bosses while not caring when we did it, or stressing out about wiping for hours if we don’t actually feel like doing it. It works for us. What’s working for you? Or what isn’t? I’m feeling chatty today, so feel free to let loose if you just need an ear. Have some tea.

Comments on: "Learning to say: “No, thank you.”" (37)

I had to back out of a full-time slot for 10man Dragon Soul (after I’ve been “quit” from raiding now since 4.3) because I realized after one night that I was falling back into that stupid pattern again of BEING somewhere. I don’t want to have my nights scheduled. I want to podcast. I want to blog. I want to be able to do stupid shit with my guildies.

I definitely have the “too much time, not enough NOs” syndrome. I want to run Ulduar, I want to do Firelands for people, I want to do this and that. Thankfully what’s kept me from doing that is that everyone wants to do stuff on the same nights so I can’t be in two places at once 😉 I have my one night a week that I do my big MMLA guild runs (for legendary shards, mog gear and Herald loot) and the rest of the week I try to keep “free” for whatever.

Hah! Limitations on cloning technology can also work as an antidote to over scheduling! It sounds like you have worked out a nice balance for yourself; one where you can still contribute to the endeavours of friends (if you feel like it and it happens to fall at a time when you’re available) without stressing yourself out about it.

I think it’s really easy to internalize feelings of obligation that other people wouldn’t impose on us at all. I probably feel guilt about saying “no” to things when the person asking doesn’t even give it a second thought.

First and foremost, great post! I’m excited to see how many others share this.

I feel your pain, I really, really do. It’s actually, for me, a problem within WoW as well as a WoW/RL problem. When someone says ‘hey, can anyone boost me through some dungeons?’ it’s a literal struggle for me not to be the one volunteering.

It’s taken a lot of effort, some mental re-adjustment, and the influence of a great guy to get me away from being that person who always volunteered, I felt beholden to my guild-mates for scraps of advice they’d given me while I was levelling, for the occasional couple of dungeon runs, for helping me out when I couldn’t work something out. As a result, I spent much of my in-game time giving back, or feeling bad that I couldn’t. I levelled herbing so I could contribute more than ‘just’ being the ultra-geared raid tank.

But it’s getting better, and I’m even starting to miss the occasional one of our two raid nights to go out with friends, and I’m thinking of cutting one out altogether. We’ll see how that goes!

It sounds like we really struggle with the same problem. And honestly, I want to say that a lot of the time it ISN’T a problem, I mean – it’s pretty awesome to be someone who can and will help others! There’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in that, and I think folks often appreciate it a lot. It’s only, as you say, when you let it get out of hand or you’re always worrying about not doing enough. Like the herbalism thing – I used to fish to fill the bank with feasts, until we just…started buying the fish. It didn’t make any difference to the feasts. Nobody even knew I was doing it. The feasts still do their job. I fish when I WANT to (to relax or whatever) and don’t feel I’m somehow letting the guild down if I don’t, because I know we can always just buy them.

I’m glad to hear that you’ve managed to find something of a balance with your time, or are working on doing so. I think ultimately it leads to more fun in-game if you are truly only doing things when you want to rather than out of a sense of obligation!

One thing that has been really nice about joining Business Time is just how friendly everyone is and open to doing things.

Logged in last night on the druid I bumped to 80 and got dragged into doing an old Northrend instance. Listened on mumble to Fsob and Supp.

I’ve only been with the guild a short time, but it is nice to be able to log in, do a couple of short things with people and not feel like a troll when you need to go.

But the hardest thing for me is learning to say ‘I can’t do all of this.” Which is funny since I am always on everyone else to take a step back, or a night when they needed it. I never feel comfortable taking time out of a raid.

Last week, when I worked all Saturday, I was originally thinking I was going to bring my laptop into work to raid and then go back to work. It took a friend’s husband to volunteer to help, to get me to realize just how stupid that was.

All that rambling to say that I do not do the balance well. But I still have a husband going to school in the evenings and working during the day, so gaming fill those nights when I am at home.

I’d say you are a key candidate for someone who probably does TOO much, Itanya! 😉 Though of course only you know that absolute limit. It’s good to have people around you who can make you take a step back, even if it’s just through saying, “Hey um…no,” or “Are you sure you really want to do that?” I hope you aren’t putting yourself out with the Firelands runs, and you know that nobody expects you to go to them if it’s an added stress you don’t need.

I’m also really happy to hear how you’ve settled into BT. I am glad you took a chance and put yourself out there with us! You’ve fit in famously and it always thrills me when people say they enjoy the guild. My extremely biased opinion is that it’s a great place to be, but I want EVERYONE to feel that way too!

I’m one of those people who likes having things planned. So having a raid provides me with a few hours of structured time. I have cut down raiding time. At one point during burning crusade, I raided every night of the week. That had to stop. (I should also point out that my husband is exactly the opposite. He HATES committing to a set time and day in a week to do something every single week. He dislikes raiding a lot!)

Firelands has been fun and I have always enjoyed it. (And it provided me with the best excuse ever to leave work on Saturday!) I like doing it. I rave about it to my friends, because I think it is great fun.

It’s funny that Noxilite moving to encompass two games (WoW and TOR) actually helped me break the idea that I had to be in WoW all the time.

Since then, I’ve gone nights without logging in at all. Or nights where I played a game by myself, while being in vent with other people. (I played through all the Mass Effect games, most of them with my husband watching and making fun of my choices)

Issues with my health have kept me at home after work for years. Gaming kept me from completely withdrawing. When wrath came out, I had a crisis in my health, which forced me to cut my gaming down. It also made me quite cranky (And forced me to finally change doctors with everything that happened along with it) Which is why I now game from a very expensive laptop and my shiny desktop sits unused on my desk in the computer room. (I miss my desktop, but I do not miss the health issue, not one bit.

I won’t say it’s been easy. Because it hasn’t. It’s been pretty miserable at times, but I have good friends (even if they don’t live close by) and a very loving and forgiving husband. I’m just old and I take longer to learn things.

I imagine they would do that! I think that’s a risk for us, getting a bit wrapped up in ourselves. In a way if you have stuff that NEEDS doing and people that need spending time with, this never arises at all. Voss and I have made the mistake in the past of thinking that because we were playing the game we were actually “spending time together” which often wasn’t true.

Yes, you’re absolutely right about the illusion of spending time together. That happens a lot even out of game, where my wife and I could be in the same room and she’s on the family computer and I’m working on my laptop, and nary a word between us is shared for an hour or more.

I’ve got a very specialized version of this problem. It doesn’t have anything to do with WoW and it isn’t because I can’t say no to people. It is that I can’t say no to my Mom and my Mom can’t say no to people. She commits herself to doing all kinds of things. Things that conflict with other things. Then she finds more things to commit. When she hits her break point I get the call and always come in to bat clean up. I can say no to just about anybody, but not to my frazzled Mom.

Funny thing was last night I got the call and wasn’t available immediately. I was helping my neighbor clean up his computer after a nasty trojan/virus infection. When she finally reached me she actually told me how this is the 3rd or 4th time this year I’ve cleaned this guys system and he was taking advantage of me. She thought I needed to put up some boundaries and maybe send him to a professional repair person. Then she said how I needed to come over and help build decorations for one of her friends wedding that is this weekend. She had promised to do it, but she had to take another friend to get her hair done and then go grocery shopping as she volunteered to make several different deserts for her church group by Sunday (I may need your help with that).

That is a very tough one! I hadn’t even considered what happens when you are pulled into the problem of someone else (whom you love) over committing THEIR time and then imposing on yours. I don’t suppose you can have a gentle conversation with her about it? I wonder if you made it more about how SHE tries to help too many people then she might get it? She sounds like a very loving and generous person. It’s funny though that she is protective of YOU (“That guy is taking advantage of you!”) but doesn’t feel taken advantage of herself (or see that maybe she takes advantage of you, as well). There is no easy solution to such a dilemma. 😦

I’m starting up in raiding again and Id forgotten what it felt like having that time locked in. Its good and bad, esp when your benched. I never managed time well I’ll go form shinny to shinny and end up not sleeping <.<

My husband has committed himself to only raiding 2 nights a week. It doesn’t help that he’s asleep by 10:00, and our raids are usually 9:00 to 11:00. Or rather, it does help him say no to other raids (we both sincerely wish our guild raided earlier, but sadly, many of them have kids and they can’t raid until after bedtime).

But I totally get your point, as I find myself overextended. I’m trying to cut back, but there’s just so much fun out there! Thankfully our late raid times mean we can eat together and cook and watch the latest episode of Castle or whatever while we eat. But damn if it doesn’t get wearying falling in bed at midnight every night only to wake up 6 hours later….

It’s so tough to find that balance for yourself, and only you know it. 😦 I have raided with folks who thought they were fine ending at midnight their time, only for them to later realize it left them really tired and cranky. It’s easy to THINK something is fine because after all, you can manage it – but is it what’s best for you? I am always trying to ask myself this.

(Dislike the logging in WordPress forces you to do now, if your email address is in their system. >.>)

Anyhow, for quite some time (this whole expansion and most of Burning Crusade), I have taught my guildies that no, I emphatically do not want to do stuff.

The vast majority of the time I set aside for WoW is consumed with running a guild and raiding with that guild.

The rest of it, I raid part-time with some old friends from Wrath with my baby pally.

As such, I just do not have a lot of time to spare, but most people know by now that no, I do not want to join in on X run or Y raid.

My biggest problem with this was initially feeling left out of “stuff”, but since I would almost certainly have to say “no” anyway, I got over it fairly quickly.

Your FL run really does sound like fun — I could go on Kurn, have a good time, etc — but again, free time is sparse. Between the guild, raiding, the podcast, school, some odd work… So for me, I don’t really have much of a choice. I think your advice here is pertinent to many people who might not be as swamped as I am, because it’s EXCEEDINGLY easy to do “too much” in the game and go along with everyone and their brother on their runs. I used to do that in Vanilla. I was ALWAYS game for attunement runs, Jailbreak, Core Fragment, running UBRS or Strat or any of those, and I’d get people their keys at the same time. But I just couldn’t sustain that in BC and while I was a lot more active in Wrath, I also wasn’t running a guild for the majority of it.

So great advice and a good reminder to me that even if something sounds tempting, I should probably pass anyhow because I truthfully do not have the time to spare.

Kurn, I absolutely understand. The funny thing is that in writing this, I actually thought, “What if some people who raid FL with us change their minds?” But ultimately I can’t be so selfish as to want them to NOT do what is best for them – the same way I wouldn’t ask you outright about Kurn. Because I know that you’ve surely seen me advertising the run, and if you had time and inclination you’d express interest. (Hey, it’s even a 25 this week, not a ten that you don’t like! 😉 And I know it’s not personal, either. I’d love to raid with you sometime but time is limited for everyone and if I make tough decisions for myself I have to unequivocally respect the decisions everyone makes for their own well-being, too! I am glad that a number of Apotheosis folks have had some “crossover,” though. You guys are like our extended family 25 guild in my eyes, haha.

Love this post. I think it really hits home – many, many serious wow players think they’re doing a better job of balancing RL > Wow than they are. I think for me, when I was very committed to the game, I made the conscious choice that the game WAS real life, and which ever had the commitment first was the one I would stick to (except emergencies, of course.) Which I thought was more honest, for me, because I do resent people who cancel obligations in game for casual “real life” things, simply because the people there were closer geographically. But of course, the game is scheduled, and I always had more things outside of raid I could be doing for achievements or to help a friend. It definitely got to be too much.

I’m struggling a bit with this now, even. I am good at either making ALL the commitments, or none. And I’ve done okay up til recently this expac going extremely casual and not making any plans more than about half an hour in advance. But now with twitterland raiding and being in a guild I adore and falling back in love with my main, I find that old itch starting back up.

I DO want to see Firelands! I DO want to grind out my BiS! I DO want to learn to PvP again! I DO want to get back on top of my guild’s nerd point list. Yes I want to heal your BG and yes I want to do your heroic and yes I want to get your alt transmog gear and yes I need to collect more mounts and grind rep… suddenly it’s 1 am and what I needed to do was sleep. Or meditate. Or drink a beer with my partner and walk the dog or revise my resume.

But making no commitments isn’t very fun either. Suffice it to say, I think it’s a hard balance, a hard temptation, to find what works for you, and it’s not a one time “solved” problem.

Narci, you touch on a very important point here. I actually dislike the “RL > WoW” trope because it ignores the fact that the people playing WoW with you ARE REAL. I understand that things do come up, but it’s absolutely an expectation that everyone signs up for raids on time, and attends if they say they will – or lets me know if for some reason they can’t. Because doing otherwise is tantamount to saying “My time is more important than yours.” It’s like any RL commitment to me, if you make it you honour it or you have a damn good reason why not.

That said, having that mindset is exactly what led to burnout in my case in the first place – I gave my responsibilities as a guild leader and a raider equal precedence with everything else in life and ultimately it was a bit too much emphasis on the game. Scaling back has been great for me, but just like you said, it’s not the kind of problem that has an easy fix. You have to stay vigilant about it. You don’t want to always say no to every opportunity to have fun in-game, but you need to recognize when you need that beer, or walk the dog. I think it’s an important conversation to have for all of us – because in conjunction with managing our own commitments, we can be respectful and more aware of those that others’ have. I can never get upset at someone for NOT wanting to do something with me when there are many times when I have to say no for my own peace of mind! We all have other stuff going on.

One of the things that made a big difference for me was turning the parental controls on and asking Blizzard to email me how much time I was playing each week. I had a week last August where I played 45 hours. It’s hard to notice while you’re playing and having fun but that’s really is a lot of time. That’s another full-time job. There are a lot of other things I wasn’t doing.

So now I’m raiding one day a week and enjoying it. I do still login most days but I’ve decided that I don’t want to create more obligations for myself. Being less committed has let me be more mindful about what I’m doing, to reflect on what I want out of the game and to walk away for a few days if I please without letting anybody down.

I love this post, Vid. 🙂 I’ve largely dialed back myself, which is why you don’t see me on blogs or Twitter anymore. I log on for raids and arena, and though I’d like to help guildies with their FL runs or our second raid group, I mostly have to pass. I just need the time back.

I still like the game, but it’s important to play at my own pace. I’ve heard of people scaling back to one day a week and I have to say it intrigues me! I don’t think this is something that was possible before.

I used to be a “can’t say no” person. My wife cured me of that – in most situations her happiness is more important to me than that of others. It doesn’t mean I don’t still struggle with it though.

As I posted recently I really struggle with the “there is so much to do and I don’t have enough time” which is a similar problem – for me its less about saying no to others and saying no to myself. I found myself thinking just last night as I watched one of guildies get the Ping Pong Champion (by accident apparently) that I have a bit more time (i.e. it doesn’t hurt as much if I stay up late) and I could join him for raids when they need a fill in.

For me I need to constantly re-evaluate and make sure I’m not slipping back into trying to do to much. Often this is prompted by my wife – her not playing WoW is a big help in that regard!

These days, I actually want to play more WoW then I actually do. My interest in the game is back and there’s much I could do – leveling or LFRing. Thankfully, I have a bigger problem. I have this idea that one hour of playtime just isn’t enough. Or rather, one hour will only leave me wanting more. So instead of setting myself up for dissatisfaction, I’ll just do something else. Long story short, I’m rushed enough in my day job that I don’t want to spend my evenings rushed as well.

Finding a balance is really hard, especially in an MMO. If you don’t have set times and people (or at least potential times and a pool of people to draw from), there are many things you won’t have an opportunity to do. It’s very rare that you’ll find the right balance between being bored on weeks where you don’t have other things to worry about and being stretched too thin or over-committed on other weeks.

I think the best solution is to simply limit yourself on activities that involve others, and find new activities you can use to fill free time, even if it means missing out on some things you’d like to do. It’s much harder to break a habit or drop a responsibility than it is to avoid picking it up in the first place.

I’ve been writing about our Guild and raiding woes for months now but just a few days ago we had something happen which was really the last straw for us. As I’ve mentioned before we’ve had trouble keeping 10 regular and skilled players on for our raiding weekends. A few days ago a member left (which left us at 7 regulars) who coincidently was the main reason we were going to keep doing DS so he could finish his legendary. I really wanted to see us get that legendary achievement since we were 4 weeks off from it.

You may or may not know that I love getting Guild achievements but from the get-go, it was hard getting people together to get a lot of these done. Even in the last week we only managed to get a lot of the vanilla dungeons done with 3 of us. Seems a lot of people are in it for themselves even when you try so hard to do what’s best for the Guild.

So it’s was only a few days ago that I said enough was enough and told people that the Guild was no more. I wished the rest of the people GL and said I was clearing the slate and putting it all behind me. I wasn’t sure if I was going to change servers or not as the % of Horde on my server is almost non-existent which was a major issue.

But I feel that the server and some of the people have screwed us over too many times that I just want to be anonymous, at least for the time being.

Now that i have a job and i have to go to bed at certain time. It made me realize how much i was raiding just because i didnt have anything better to do than sit around the computer. It also made me realize that since i was still trying to get my account back into his former glory. I had run rampant leveling and gearing characters, it was becoming more a chore i did every week instead of just playing for fun. Not having an official main since the start of 4.3, had be extending myself very thin over 3 accounts (10 level 85s and counting).

My main was sent literally to the corner and told to go hibernate by no other than me. I think in order to fill the gap where i was raiding almost 5 nights a week i took on the task to level my toons. Because dont get me wrong i do love leveling toons and gearing them out. But not at the pace i was going.

On Monday this week, I got my wake up call and finally went to my kitty druid and started playing her again. It was like having a fresh new start. But also realize how close i came to burning myself out yet again. From then on i have been reducing my time i raid. I do LFR here and there . Raid lead 2 nights in the week and then just hang about doing some casual stuff ,go read a book, catch up on some anime or Sleep ( i sure need sleep specially with work each morning.)

Anyhow Vid thank you for this post. Its good reminder that i did the right thing 😀

I have always struggled with this. Being very much the completionist personality has always made me have a hard time saying no to doing something. I love achievements, and have always had a hard time convincing others to want to help me do them as well. Then I always felt like I needed to help others out whenever they needed it, because they had helped me with an achievement. I would end up raiding every night because of running 25’s, 10’s, old content, achievs, alts, etc. I also have trouble with just telling my self no though, in that I want to complete every achievement and try everything and I just don’t have the time for it. I forced myself to quit the game a couple of years ago because I knew I couldn’t police myself in game. I just finally rejoined the game with the Scroll, and I’m trying to not get back into my old ways of over indulging but at the same time I want to see the content I missed and do the achievements.

Once upon a time, in college, I’d do 4 nights a week. Then I went to three. Then I went to two…now I’m at one. Priorities. Time management. Goals. Some people are ok with it just being the two of them playing games every night and nothing else. I just knew there were other things I wanted to do so I started saying no thanks to extra raids, etc. Sometimes you can WoW yourself out!